Marvel Team-Up (1997) # 8-11, Dracula: Lord of the Undead (1998) # 1-3

(I originally read these comics in early/mid June 2016)

So, I read (or re-read) some second rate, late-'90s Marvel stuff that I bought at the time. First up is the doomed continuation of Marvel Team-Up after Namor supplanted Spidey as the featured star with issue # 8. This short run written by Tom Peyer and Glenn Herdling is pretty execrable. Having returned from the 'Heroes Reborn' world with his mind fragmented and having lost his ability to breathe underwater, the erstwhile "Avenging Son" resorts to desperate measures to thwart a coup in Atlantis. Each issue is suffused with enough anti-business, pro-environmentalist drek that it reads more like ultra-leftist propaganda with super-heroics as an afterthought. The art's shit, too. Avoid unless you're a similarly-minded, filthy commie.

   

Glenn Greenberg's 'Dracula: Lord of the Undead' is better. Dracula returns to his castle in Transylvania after years in America only to find his ancestral home ransacked. In trying to track down his stolen treasures, he is led to England where the "last descendant" of Dr. John Seward (even though he has children, oops), a blood specialist, works to develop a vampire-destroying virus for a mystery employer. Unfortunately, it has unforeseen side effects for humans too. Greenberg's story is unremarkable but readable (and we fans of Marvel's Drac will take what we can get). 'Tomb of Dracula' alumnus Tom Palmer is around to polish up Pat Olliffe's occasionally gruesome pencils, but the result is never more than just adequate. Memorable for a very large-breasted and leather-clad depiction of Dracula's daughter Lilith, if you're into that kind of thing. And who isn't?

  

Incredible Hulk (1968) # 468-474

(I originally read these comics in mid July 2015)

So... Just finished the short Hulk run by Joe Casey that follows Peter David's and which closed out the second volume of the title before it was relaunched in 1999. It starts off by answering the question of 'Who killed Betty Banner?' for the reader, if not the characters (hint: he's big, green and scaly), and the Circus of Crime two-parter is okay (even without the Ringmaster, BOOO). However the concluding trilogy, 'The Great Astonishment' is very dull. I almost fell asleep reading it.

Art is by Javier Pulido (who I like), but this is early work from him, and Ed McGuinness, who provides chunky, manga-esque stylings. 

I collected and read this short run when it came out and I was looking for a jumping-on point. I was underwhelmed then, and seventeen years later nothing's changed.